Offbeat Here's how the LAPD connects with immigrant communities on edge in the Trump era

Tony Stark may have to file a police report. Los Angeles police are investigating the disappearance of the original Iron Man suit worn by Robert Downey Jr. from a Pacoima warehouse, officials said Wednesday morning. The costume, valued at &dollar;325,000, vanished from a prop storage warehouse in the 13000 block of Weidner Street sometime between February and late April, according to Officer Christopher No, an LAPD spokesman. The famous red and gold suit,Los Angeles police are investigating the disappearance of the original Iron Man suit worn by Robert Downey Jr. from a Pacoima warehouse, officials said Wednesday morning.

Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti: "Our law enforcement officers and LAPD don't go around asking people for their papers, nor should they. Not only will our community be better protected by having free access to immigration lawyers, but we will also save millions of dollars in costs connected to

As part of a growing movement in response to these hostile federal actions, many elected officials across the nation have joined in solidarity with immigrant communities , along with activists and advocates, in defying the Trump administration’ s racist and xenophobic policies.

Born in Mexico City, he had crossed the border illegally when he was 5 while pretending to be asleep in the back seat of a Ford station wagon.

His experience, the Los Angeles police captain says, serves as a way for him to connect with residents who express fear about being caught up in immigration sweeps. It’s a tale that the 47-year-old, who became an American citizen while serving in the Marine Corps, has shared in one-on-one conversations and at public gatherings.

Immigrant living in church leaves sanctuary for surgery

A man living in a Massachusetts church as he tries to avoid deportation to his native Guatemala was forced to leave the sanctuary for the first time in months to have his appendix removed. After the emergency procedure, supporters of Lucio Perez escorted him back to First Congregational Church in Amherst on Thursday. They say they feared he could be taken into custody while outside the church's walls, but an immigration official dismissed that idea.

Connect with KPCC. The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday held a public hearing on how the LAPD does – and does not The hearing was held amid growing fears that the LAPD might be helping to deport people under President Trump ’ s plan to aggressively enforce immigration laws.

In the face of such a nightmare, how do we build the peace movement we need? But in an era of flying robots, classified special-forces operations launched from bases dotting the globe, police departments The same goes for organizing in the Arab-American and refugee communities .

“I want them to understand that my sympathy and my intent to build trust with the undocumented is more on a personal level, as well as a professional level,” Labrada said after a recent meeting at Santa Teresita Catholic Church, across from a Boyle Heights public housing project.

Connecting with those in the country illegally has emerged as a major goal for the Los Angeles Police Department in the era of President Trump, whose vow to ramp up deportations has stoked fear in immigrant communities.

It’s part of a policing strategy that has actually been employed by the LAPD for decades.

Nearly 40 years ago, the LAPD prohibited officers from questioning residents solely to determine their immigration status, in hopes of fostering trust and cooperation.

The mayor of Oakland is firing back at President Donald Trump over his suggestion that the Department of Justice investigate her for obstruction of justice. "Mr. President, I am not obstructing justice. I am seeking it," wrote Libby Schaaf, the Democratic mayor of the California city since 2015, in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Friday. In February, Schaaf issued a public warning for the immigrant communities in her city about impending raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the San Francisco Bay Area, a move that earned her heavy criticism from the Trump administration.

But, as with much in the Trump era , propriety and respect seem to have gone down the drain, and sensitive locations may not be as safe as they once were. Castro, from Puente, reminded me, “Allies need to understand that their goal is to help remove obstacles from the immigrant community .

Try This Gay Immigrant Muslim Furry Romance. Looking for a Book to Help Resist the Trump Era ? How Can Literature Resist Islamophobia? By early 2016, he was ready to begin writing a book that could bridge those communities .

In more recent years, a dramatic shift in the department’s demographic makeup has deepened its relationship with the diverse community it serves.

Since the racial unrest of the 1992 riots, the LAPD has created a force that, once almost all white, now nearly mirrors the city: Forty-eight percent of sworn officers are Latino, 10% are Asian and 10% are black. About 15% of the department’s officers are foreign-born.

Though the LAPD remains polarizing — particularly in the black community — on issues of use of force and in-custody deaths, experts say the department has made significant strides in forming a partnership with residents.

“They have not just reformed what they look like and whom they hire, they’ve reformed how they think, they’ve reformed their entire outlook of these communities,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney whose advice has been sought by police commissioners and elected officials for more than three decades. “And they couldn’t have done that with an all-white dominated force — they couldn’t have done that with the old LAPD.”

ICE arresting more non-criminal undocumented immigrants

President Trump has vowed to go after "bad hombres" but his ICE agents are rounding up more undocumented immigrants without a criminal record.Over the first full 14 months of the Trump administration, 69% of undocumented immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had a criminal record. Over the final two years of the Obama administration, that number was 86%.

The Bangladeshi community in Brooklyn was buzzing with anxiety about Trump ' s immigration policies and a possible crackdown after the failed subway bombing. If the Trump era hadn’t upended their lives already, there might have been panic instead of what often “Everybody works here .

We're Here to Protect and Serve Immigrants , Not Help ICE Deport Them. The LAPD Wants Immigrants to Know Their Rights, Trust Officers, and Report Crime That Matters. What Is It Like to Be an Immigrant in L.A. in the Trump Era ? As Trump ' s Policies Harm Immigrants , How Can Local Efforts Best Help?

Robert Arcos, head of the LAPD’s Central Bureau and one of three finalists to be the department’s next chief, said the shift to a diverse police force has been a long time coming.

Growing up in northeast L.A., the deputy chief, a third-generation Mexican American, said the popular 1960s TV show “Adam-12” “was really … what I knew to be LAPD.”

“These two handsome-looking male whites,” Arcos said, referring to fictional officers Pete Malloy and Jim Reed. “When I saw police officers in my neighborhood, it was very typical of watching ‘Adam-12.’ I never really saw anybody who looked like me.”

The transformation of the LAPD created opportunity. But it also created a new set of pressures and expectations.

After Trump took office, the department found itself grappling with a drop in crimes being reported by Latinos. From January to April 2017, there was a decline of more than 23% in sexual assault and a dip of more than 8% in domestic violence incidents reported by Latinos, according to the LAPD.

That prompted officers to hold more than 100 forums to remind people that the department’s stance on supporting the estimated 375,000 Los Angeles residents who are in the country illegally remained the same.

Trump discusses immigration agenda with GOP governors

President Donald Trump dined Monday evening with Republican governors supportive of his immigration policies to discuss plans for border security and deporting people in the U.S. illegally. Trump says the nation's immigration laws are the worst of anywhere in the world, particularly so-called catch-and-release policies, under which federal immigration officers release those detained for being in the U.S. illegally pending legal proceedings. Trump says, "We have to end it."Trump says progress on a border wall is being made but calls on Congress to provide more funding toward his signature campaign promise.Govs.

Trump ’ s policies are throwing whole communities into distress — and warping the daily lives of unauthorized immigrants , legal immigrants , and US citizen children alike. We’re beginning to get a more detailed picture of the miasma of fear hanging over immigrants in the Trump era , and the

stamps, highlighting how the health, safety, and economic security of immigrant families and entire communities school out of fear family members would be deported as a top concern in the Trump era . of the community from reporting when they are victimized," according to an LAPD statement.

The department issued an 11-page update on immigration procedures in late December, expanding upon its Special Order 40 from 1979 that tells officers not to “initiate police actions with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person.” The notice also expands upon L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Executive Directive 20 from March 2017, which reaffirmed existing policy around immigration and bars city employees from granting immigration agents access to city facilities that are not expressly open to the general public.

Under the new procedures, police no longer record a place of birth when interviewing victims, witnesses or people who are temporarily detained. Officers still ask anyone who is arrested for their place of birth. That information is taken during fingerprinting and sent to an FBI database, which immigration authorities can access.

The LAPD also has stopped engaging in joint operations with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection that directly involve civil immigration enforcement. Other cities, including San Gabriel and Santa Cruz, have stopped engaging in joint operations altogether.

And the department no longer transfers people with certain minor criminal convictions to ICE custody. Officers continue todetain and transfer immigrants sought through a judicial warrant or those previously convicted in the United States of a serious or violent felony — a classification that includes more than 60 crimes, including murder, rape, criminal threats, carjacking and arson. Immigrants used to be transferred to ICE custody for aggravated felonies, of which there are hundreds.

HUD pulls tool used to identify segregation in communities

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it's pulling a tool designed for communities to identify instances of segregation. The move, announced in a press release Friday, is the latest step by the department targeted at the Obama-era fair housing rules.The press release states that local governments found that the "Local Government Assessment Tool was confusing, difficult to use, and frequently produced unacceptable assessments.

Trump brags about taking the handcuffs off federal immigration agents; an executive order signed the first week of his presidency gave them latitude to arrest and deport any unauthorized immigrant in the US. Trump says that MS-13 is terrorizing communities ; his Department of Homeland Security is

Here ’ s how the Tampa Bay Times sums up the million plan to make Kindergarten Cop a reality We’ve also obviously seen this with immigration . Trump ’s wall used to be a punchline.

In a memo last month to the L.A. Police Commission, the civilian panel that oversees the department, Chief Charlie Beck noted that crime statistics at the end of 2017 showed a “significant improvement” in sexual assault and domestic violence reporting among Latinos.

But immigration activists, in a recent meeting with a City Council committee, said the LAPD’s changes don’t go far enough.

“The order introduced by Chief Beck still allows for information sharing with ICE. It still collects the place of birth information for all those who are arrested, whether they are convicted or not,” said Crissel Rodriguez of the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance. “To me, this is unsafe and it further undermines trust between the community and police.”

Beck, however, said police need to comply with the law.

“I think that our order … keeps my obligations as chief of police, but also recognizes that the police draw their most significant authority through the public that they serve,” Beck said in an interview. “And the reality is in Los Angeles that a very strong percentage of that population is undocumented.”

The LAPD plans to submit reports to the Police Commission that detail joint operations, including criminal immigration enforcement, transfers of immigrants to ICE custody and federal requests to interview detainees and be notified of their release.

Ingrid Eagly, an immigration law professor at UCLA, said the LAPD is among a handful of departments leading the way in generating policies that protect immigrant residents.

About 300 people have contacted the University of Southern California about a longtime campus gynecologist accused of misconduct as administrators Tuesday began sharing the names of former patients with Los Angeles police for a criminal investigation.&nbsp;The university declined to say how many of the 300 callers to a dedicated hotline for Dr. George Tyndall’s patients were passed on with patients’ consent to the LAPD, where sex crimes detectives in the Robbery-Homicide Division will take the lead.

Bill Raden looks at how California artists are gearing up for the Trump era . Outside of the LAPD ’ s jurisdiction, the Los Angeles Sheriff’ s Department has allowed ICE agents to groups of people – immigrants , Muslims, African-Americans, the poor, women, communities already suffering the

Undocumented immigrants are living in Donald Trump ' s new immigration enforcement era . "This is a new era this is the Trump era ." Jurado-Fernandez is an undocumented immigrant that has been living here for more than half his life.

“We are in a moment of heightened immigration enforcement that is heavily dependent on local police decisions to trigger deportations,” she said. “This makes policing policy — both on the street and inside local jails — an important part of how immigration is actually enforced on the ground.”

The fact that some in the LAPD know what it’s like to be in the country without legal status is an advantage in community outreach.

Jorge Villegas crossed into California illegally as a toddler with his mother and his younger brother in order to join his father. The family ended up in Pico-Union in the 1960s.

His father worked construction during the day and at night in a factory. Villegas’ mother worked as a seamstress, unable to use the architectural degree she had studied for in Guadalajara, Mexico.

“We lived in fear of … la migra,” Villegas said. “I remember not being allowed to be out on the sidewalks or the parks. I had to be picked up from school and made sure that we weren’t seen, so to speak.”

His parents became legal residents in 1970 but did not get their citizenship until the early ’80s.

Villegas enlisted in the Army, where he was able to expedite his citizenship process. Now he is an assistant chief with the LAPD — one of the highest ranks in the 10,000-officer department.

“One of the best ways to provide calm to the community is to say that you are the community,” Villegas said. “When you can genuinely say it, it eases into the opportunity to have meaningful dialogue and to have relationships.”

On a recent evening at the LAPD’s Hollenbeck station in Boyle Heights, Labrada gathered with organizers and other officials for a forum on immigration fraud.

For years, his mother would travel between Mexico and the United States, working to save enough money to bring the family of five to a one-bedroom house in Rosemead in 1975.

While trying to gain residency, his family would wait hours in the cold on Olvera Street — where the Mexican consulate was once located — having an atole, a hot drink made from corn, and churro for breakfast.

“We knew there was a process we had to go through to become legal residents without having that fear of deportation,” said Labrada, who joined the LAPD in 1993.

“I think there’s a lot more anxiety now than when I was a child,” Labrada said, adding that the politics of immigration is not the issue for him. “This is the human side of it, and the human side of it is people are still living in this community and they’re in fear.”

Boy who fired rifle at Calif. high school took weapon from dad .
The boy who allegedly fired a Soviet semi-automatic rifle at a southern California high school Friday swiped the weapon from his dad."The rifle belonged to the father," a source with the Los Angeles County Sheriff said Wednesday.

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The Bangladeshi community in Brooklyn was buzzing with anxiety about Trump ' s immigration policies and a possible crackdown after the failed subway bombing. If the Trump era hadn’t upended their lives already, there might have been panic instead of what often “Everybody works here .

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Trump ’ s policies are throwing whole communities into distress — and warping the daily lives of unauthorized immigrants , legal immigrants , and US citizen children alike. We’re beginning to get a more detailed picture of the miasma of fear hanging over immigrants in the Trump era , and the

stamps, highlighting how the health, safety, and economic security of immigrant families and entire communities school out of fear family members would be deported as a top concern in the Trump era . of the community from reporting when they are victimized," according to an LAPD statement.

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